Old friend, New nemesis
by konstantina732
Summary: He was furious; he had just caught his best friend torturing his younger brother. He couldn't believe that his best old friend would become his nemesis.


A/n: There's some cowboy slang in this fic, so feel free to refer to the list below, in case you don't understand something.

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 **Cowboy slang meaning**

 **To dig for his cannon:** to reach for his gun (his wand in this case)  
 **To invite someone for a dance:** to shoot under someone's feet making them look like they are dancing **  
To stay above snakes:** to stay alive  
 **Fly at it:** usuallyused to encourage someone to fight  
 **Heeled:** armed with a gun (in this case a wand)  
 **Light a shuck:** get lost  
 **Ain't worth a hill of beans:** it's not worth it  
 **Hell fire:** exclamation of irritation

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It was a hot summer day. The sun was burning Albus' skin and the sand crunched under his boots. Maybe it was because the sun was blurring his vision, but he could have sworn he saw a tumble-weed blowing between them. A drop of sweat dripped from his forehead down to his cheek. He was furious; he had just caught his best friend torturing his younger brother. He couldn't believe that his best old friend would become his nemesis. He looked him dead in the eye and dug for his cannon. He got in dueling position and fired a Stupefy towards his opponent.

"You leave my brother alone!" he shouted. His spell narrowly missed his target.

"Relax, Albus, I just invited him to a dance, he'll manage to stay above snakes." Gellert said before he fired a spell in his opponent's direction.

That made Albus even angrier; sarcasm was the only thing he hated more than people messing with his family. He took a step to the side, avoiding the spell that had left his friend's wand and got ready to answer with a new hex, but before he could even open his mouth, somebody else attacked Gellert. He turned around only to see Aberforth getting up with his wand still aimed at the person that was torturing him some minutes ago.

"Do you want to fight, boy? Fly at it!" Gellert smirked

"Go to blazes! You-"

The hex that left Gellert's wand caused the young wizard to stop talking. It was heading towards Aberforth's chest, but Albus cast a Protego in time to protect his brother and fired a spell back, causing Gellert to fall on the sand. Unfortunate to the two brothers, he recovered rapidly. He brushed some sand off his vest and pants and fired a new spell.

The duel was getting more and more intense when the front door opened, revealing the youngest of the three siblings, Ariana. Gellert and Aberforth didn't stop firing spells, but Albus started getting anxious. He was supposed to be strong, but right now he was frightened. People there were very serious about dueling. At the end of the day, it was part of their culture. She shouldn't be there! She wasn't even heeled. She could get hurt.

"What's going on?"

"Ariana? What are you doing here?" he asked, firing a spell towards Gellert

"You are making a lot of noise and I wanted to know what was-"

"Go back inside!" he shouted, but his stubborn sister didn't move. He casted a shielding spell and turned towards her "I said go back inside! Can't you hear me?"

Despite his shouting, she stayed there watching the duel. Hexes were being fired between the three men and, even though most of them were missing their targets, the two brothers were winning.

Gellert was too absorbed in firing spells that he didn't notice he was losing, so he was very surprised when he realized he had been backing off. At that moment, Albus hit him with an Expelliarmus and his wand flew out of his hand landing in the ready palm of his old friend.

Gellert didn't dare to go back, so he started running not knowing where to go, he wouldn't be able to defend himself now and Albus didn't look like he was willing to return the wand.

.

Albus was staring at the wand lying in his palm. It was beautiful. He wondered how such a wand could be used to torture anyone.

"Light a shuck!" It was his brother shouting at Gellert. Aberforth wanted to chase him, but there wasn't a point.

"You'll never catch him. He is abditive. Besides, he doesn't have a wand. It ain't worth a hill of beans.," said Albus his eyes still lingering on the wand. It was impossible to look away. The wand was so exquisite. The wand-maker that made it must have spent weeks or, maybe, even months to create such a wand. It was about 15'' long and it had small carvings all over it. He really admired both the wand and its maker.

Albus estimated that he had been staring at the wand for a long time when the screams of his brother made him snap out of his trance. They were too loud and Albus thought he could hear him crying too. He raised his head and started searching for Aberforth. It didn't take him a lot of time to find him. He was sitting on their porch with his back turned towards his older brother. Albus was now sure; he was sobbing, but he couldn't figure out why. He ran towards him and then he saw her.

 _Hell fire!_

Ariana was lying on the porch. Her cheeks were pale, almost white and her eyes looked like they were made out of glass. Her lips were slowly turning purple and when he reached out to brush some of her hair off her face he was shocked that she was very cold, almost frozen. He felt a tear running down his cheek. He was angry again. But this time he was angry with himself. It was his fault. He knew it. He should have dragged her inside the house. He should have done anything to protect her. But he had just let her stand there and watch. He didn't know what to do. He wanted to destroy something. Anything. But he didn't. He just stood there looking at his sisters white body.

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A/n: This is written for the second phase of The Mystery Competition by A Sirius Crush On Moony in Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum.

Characters: Albus Dumbledore

Prompt: western

Well...I think this was one of the hardest fics I could ever write, but I hope it's good. A huge thanks to tresemellon for betaing and to Malhearst for helping me to come up with a plot for this story.

Thanks for reading, hope it was good. Please review!


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